Posted on 09/08/2002 7:16:48 AM PDT by aculeus
ACCORDING to the New York Medical Examiner's Office, no one jumped from the hellish towers on that awful September day in Lower Manhattan. This despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Evidence like grotesque photos and video shots of the trapped victims jumping from the smoke-billowing, flame-ravished upper storeys of the 1,400ft buildings. Like the testimony of horrified spectators. Like the mangled bodies which spattered the large plaza between South and North Towers. Like the bodies which were found on the roof of the 22-storey Marriott Hotel, and the bodies which crashed through the VIP driveway awning on Tower 1's west side. Like the fact that at least one of the jumpers killed rescue personnel and/ or bystanders. Like the fact that an investigation by USA Today and ABC News revealed that more than 200 people jumped to their certain death.
But there are compelling reasons for the Medical Examiner's reluctance to classify the victims as "jumpers". "Jumper" is a term used to classify someone who deliberately and knowing plunges off a building to certain death. That's suicide. The 200 or so individuals who made the horrendous decision to jump on the morning of September 11 were forced to do so by fire, the smoke, the heat, the inexorable inevitability of death. In effect they did not jump. They were pushed. Homicide.
Suicide carries a taboo; the bereaved were entitled to protection from distressing images of their loved ones.
There was also a political consideration. In steeling America for the counter-terrorism war against Al Qa'ida, the victim numbers counted. There were 2,823 early and cruel deaths, 1,300 orphans and countless suicides arising from post-traumatic stress.
Many images haunted spectators and survivors. Images like the dust-lady (Marcy Border) staggering away, that of fireman Mike Kehoe rushing up the stairwell, but the image that has etched itself into the Western mind is of the people trapped above or near the impact points on the two towers. Of those working above the 84th floor on the South Tower, only 16 survived. (They had evacuated in the 16 minutes between the two air-strikes.) Of those on or above floor 91 on North Tower (impact 94th to 98th floors), no one survived. It was these people trapped in the upper reaches of the towering infernos who were left with the pitiful choice between the devilish flames and the sky.
The bereaved are individuals, not a category. They all react differently. One 12-year-old who lost her dad still watches only the Food Channel because it's the only channel guaranteed not to show images from September 11.
But others like Jean Coleman, who lost two sons, employees of Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor have scoured all the photos, amateur video clips and TV footage to try to identify their relatives and figure out their states of mind.
The picture that has emerged from last phone calls, photographic evidence, emails and the 16 South Tower evacuees is truly terrifying, but also inspiring. There was panic, but most strove to survive, helped others, and many stoically accepted their fate and phoned love-messages to their loved ones. Urgent phone calls were made to the lobby fire control. The advice was to stay put. Some tried to evacuate via stairwells. All were driven back by the flames and smoke.
Others tried to make their way up to the roof, hoping for a helicopter rescue, but the roof exit doors were shut and a helicopter rescue was ruled out by emergency services.
Others phoned to tell relatives they were OK or to find out what had happened. Steve Tomsett on the 106th floor used his computer to ask his family, who were watching TV, for "updates". Shortly after, as the smoke and intense heat reached his floor, he emailed simply, "I'm scared."
Others trapped on the North Tower used their computers to break the windows, gasping for air and leaning out, looking for respite and rescue. Some peeled off their tops and waved them despairingly. Others made the awful decision and jumped.
They jumped singly, in pairs, in groups. Their bodies hurtling down at 140mph. From below they looked at first like debris. Then onlookers realised that they were humans. Some of them retched.
Those trapped in the South Tower were caught between a primal urge to flee and official advice that their building was "secure". But when some, like Andrecia Douglin-Traill on the 92nd floor, saw the North Tower jumpers, they decided to run. She was saved.
Indeed, many of the successful evacuees from the top floors of the South Tower testified later that it was the ghoulish sight of the jumpers which convinced them to flee.
For Jean Coleman it was important to track down her sons she found them in a photo which appeared in the New York Times. The two boys, Scott and Keith, were hanging out of adjacent windows. She felt the photo showed they were "relatively" serene. You see what you want to see. And you get closure.
Most people in America never wanted to see the pictures of the trapped people and non-jumpers. The images burned a passionate resentment into the soul.
That's from the article. I see it the same way you do and even after re-reading it, I couldn't find anything in the article to complain about. It is overwhelmingly obvious he is saying they were murdered- it's almost as if the author is wanting to remind us not to start slipping up and thinking of them as suicides- because they weren't, they were killed. Perhaps he overheard an aquaintance call them suicides and after straightening them out on the spot he decided to write an article reminding people that those individuals on 9/11 didn't commit suicide.
Some people I think are just really charged up in a forum like this to find fault with an article and they do so after the first two sentences and ignore what the writer is trying to really say... Just my humble opinion.
It could happen. We must pray. We must seek. And we must destroy.
When will these murders be avenged 10 times over? I'm still waiting.
Good point. The writer made me admire some of the vicims in fact. It was well written, and well thought out. The problem is, this is a highly emotional memory, and some people are going to snap when they are reminded of it. That is why I like to focus on the enemy. Wasted energy to bite the heads off your own side, like the critics of this article.
But like I said, everyone has buttons that make them go haywire. Not surprising that this is one of them.
Sad Freegards....
Positivitely! And we've given the Arabs every opportunity to learn that. We've been showing them our vulnerabilities for years.
Perhaps if I share it with others the memory will be easier to handle.
It is the oral history of Ernest Armstead entitled,Tormented by conversions with death. He was an EMT, at Ground Zero.
".....I ran towards them, my triage tags in hand. There was a man having a seizure and his eyes were rolling into the back of his head. He had struck the pavement so hard that there was virturally nothing else left of him. There were a couple others that I never got to, but I could see from a short distance that they were dead. And then there was the lady with the nice hairdo and earrings.
When I got to her, I ripped out a black tag. What impressed me - and scared me - was that she was alert and was watching what I was doing. I put the tag around her neck and she looked at me and said, "I am not dead. Call my daughter. I am not dead." I was so startled that for a split second I was speechless. "Ma'am," I said. "don't worry about it, We will be right back for you." That was a lie. She couldn't see what I could see. Somehow, I guess it was an air draft or something, her fall had been cushioned enought so that she didn't splatter like the others. Still her body was so twisted and torn apart that I could only ask myself, Why is this lady still alive and talking to me? How can this be? Her right lung, shoulder and head were intacted, but from the diaphragm down she was unrecognizable. Yet she was lucid enough that she continued to argue with me."I am not dead," she insisted again.
....but another wave of casualties arrived in the lobby from upstairs, so I needed to return. As I headed back, I stepped over the lady one more time. And as eerie and unsettling as our first encounter had been, the second was even worse. She yelled at me.
"I am not dead! I am not dead!"
"They're coming, they're coming." I replied without stopping.
"I am not dead! I am not dead!"
Agreed.
I have reoccuring nightmares now because of that. I've always been a very vivid dreamer- I sometimes read entire magazines in my sleep- even catch spelling errors ;-). At any rate, sometimes I'm on top of an unspecified tall building. Sometimes I'm on top of the Eiffel Tower (I lived in Paris for some months, long enough to get the details of it burned into my head) and other times I'm on top of the WTC (sometimes a mammoth newer version). Always, there's something I'm trying to get away from or I need to hide or people are coming to kill me. Usually, I'm a bit more macho in combatant type nightmares but for some reason on top of these tall structures I only feel helpless. I always have to get very close to the edge to get away or hide and I'm very afraid I will slip off the edge and fall but the need to get away or hide is usually overwhelming. I usually wake up just as I'm on the edge looking down- the ground seems like it's a couple of miles down...
I've never been afraid of heights. I've done a tandem skydive and was not in any way afraid on the plane before or during the freefall. I thought it was a big rush. I've always been a climber too- ever since I was a kid.
The part of 9/11 regarding the people falling that affected me the worst was this one guy actually tried to shinny down the side of the WTC. I saw footage of that. The outside of the WTC was "ribbed". He clamped onto it and started going down it the same way I've climbed many a coconut tree. He made it a fair little way too- enough that you were actually starting to hope the guy might make it to a lower floor with an open window and then he either lost the strength to stay clamped onto the rib or his grip slipped... I felt really, really badly for him- maybe because he didn't give up and jump. He tried to make it and took an incredibly risky course of action. I picture myself trying something like that- maybe that's why it bothers me so much and maybe that's why I have these creepy dreams.
Damn the bastards that did that.
Jesus...
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